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Justice News

Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney’s Office

District of New Mexico

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, December 16, 2013

Albuquerque Man Sentenced to Ten Years for Unlawfully Possessing a Firearm

ALBUQUERQUE – Christian Alexander Sangiovanni, 33, of Albuquerque, N.M., was sentenced to ten years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Sangiovanni was arrested in Aug. 2012, on an indictment charging him with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. The indictment alleged that Sangiovanni unlawfully possessed a firearm and ammunition on April 25, 2010, in Bernalillo County, N.M. At the time, Sangiovanni was prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition because he previously had been convicted of the following three felony offenses in the 12th Judicial District Court for the State of New Mexico: embezzlement in 2000; sexual exploitation of children in 2001; and battery on a police officer in 2003. He also previously had been convicted of possession of heroin with intent to distribute in the 4th Judicial District Court for the State of New Mexico in Guadalupe County in 2005.

Sangiovanni was convicted on March 20, 2013, after a jury trial where the evidence established that on April 25, 2010, Sangiovanni brandished a firearm at a 17-year-old high school student in a car outside a convenience store in the Northeast Heights of Albuquerque. While brandishing the firearm, Sangiovanni threatened to kill first the teenager and then himself. Later that night, Sangiovanni sent the teenager an E-mail in which he threatened her against telling anyone about the violent encounter. Thereafter, Sangiovanni E-mailed the teenager photographs of himself holding a pistol to his head. On April 26, 2010, the teenager and her mother contacted the police and reported Sangiovanni’s threats against the teenager and provided the E-mails containing the threats and photographs of Sangiovanni holding the pistol to his head.

On May 3, 2010, after Sangiovanni continued to send threatening E-mails to the teenager, officers executed an arrest and search operation at a residence where Sangiovanni was staying. After arresting Sangiovanni on state charges, the officers found a Smith & Wesson, model 459, 9mm pistol with an extended magazine that contained rounds of ammunition. The pistol subsequently was identified by the teenager as the weapon that Sangiovanni brandished at her on April 25, 2010.

The case was investigated by the Albuquerque office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the Albuquerque Police Department with assistance from the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Norman Cairns.